[myoung6923]

I just deleted that Ratdog show from my hard drive, and can no longer play it in iTunes, but I CAN still play it in my iPod; it's still there, I just was listening to it, but I tried clicking play on iTunes, and it says what Blob said it would "cannot be found/would you like to locate it?". Weird.

iTunes knows that there was a song in that location once - it's still listed in the iTunes window - but since you deleted it, it's no longer there - so of course iTunes can't locate it - because it's not there anymore. It's still on your ipod but it won't be once you sync it again. since it's not on the computer it'll take it off the ipod. It's best to let the songs be copied to the iTunes folder and then let iTunes keep it organized, delete the original and then don't touch the itunes folder.

[shakedown_04092]

So what's the difference between AAC, MP3, and WAV in terms of importing cd's?

By the way - THANK YOU for all the help - you guys have been extrememly awesome.

[BlobWeird]

iTunes knows that there was a song in that location once - it's still listed in the iTunes window - but since you deleted it, it's no longer there - so of course iTunes can't locate it - because it's not there anymore. It's still on your ipod but it won't be once you sync it again. since it's not on the computer it'll take it off the ipod. It's best to let the songs be copied to the iTunes folder and then let iTunes keep it organized, delete the original and then don't touch the itunes folder.

You can have it so that it never syncs. Thats the way I have it which is best. You dont run the risk of losing anything.

[myoung6923]

So what's the difference between AAC, MP3, and WAV in terms of importing cd's?

By the way - THANK YOU for all the help - you guys have been extrememly awesome.

The difference is compression (size), and quality. Wav and AIFF are the full quality file like they are right on the CD - they are the highest audio quality but take up the most room. So most people opt for some sort of compression at a slight sacrifice of audio quality. AAC is apple's version of a relatively lossless compression format - it is very good and I'm willing to bet that you can't notice any diffence between an AAC file and a wav. MP3 is an even more compressed format and it's quality and size depends on the bitrate that it's originally compressed with - the higher the bitrate, the higher the quality.128 or 196 K are pretty standard bitrates and very good - 196 is better. at 128 you get about a 10:1 compression over a WAV format - so a 60 MB wav file will compress to about 6 MB as a 128k MP3. These higher bitrate MP3's also sound very good and likely still won't notice any difference from the original WAV file.

Make sense?

[shakedown_04092]

Wow, very much so, thanks myoung!

But how do I make it so it doesn't sunc my iPod automatically? I swear I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff, I can't seem to find it. It's probably pretty easy and right in front of my face.

[myoung6923]

settings for your ipod can only be changed when your ipod is actually connected and recognized in iTunes.

So, first - connect your iPod & make sure that it's listed on the left hand side window of itunes. Then click on your ipod in that window and make sure that it's highlighted. then in the main window to the right, under the summary tab - check the box for "manually manage music". Then it won't sync at all - you'll need to actually drag songs and playlists from iTunes into your ipod to get them onto your ipod. To do this, make sure you have a playlist or your main music library selected in the window on the left side - and then find the song(s) or playlist that you want and drag into the icon for your ipod - also in the left side window. If you want to drop it into a specific playlist on your iPod make sure to click the drop down menu (the little triangle next to your ipod icon) and then just drop your songs into the appropriate playlist on your ipod.

This will work for what you want to do but it's kinda tedious - especially if you have a lot of stuff that you want to work with. If you're going to go with an external HD - which is a very good idea - then it's much better to let it sync automatically - once you have the drive that is..